Unless you want a mac for specific reasons, you will save a lot of money going the windows or linux route. How about a custom windows machine? I'd go with that over linux because of the abundance of photo editting options for windows, apple (and to a lesser degree, linux) do okay but windows is top for sheer variety.

For the purposes you listed, don't think you can go wrong with either but the my personal opinion is that all but the top of the line imacs are phenomenally bad value.

I'd say get used to windows and go with a custom build Core i7 system.

I'm building one tomorrow for £615, including a £80 case which you "could" do without.

Another option is using OS X 86 - essentially, putting OS X onto a standard PC. Yes, there can be major compatibility problems but if you do your research there are people who've had setups working since 10.4 to 10.6 without a hitch.

JeroenE520 - No operating system is perfect, but some are better than others.

You say that "Linux is fine but limited".

Linux has lower hardware demands than some other systems.

I've been using Linux for over 9 years, and Linux-only for the last 5.

What "limits" are you referring to?

The Distro I use has over 12,000 Applications, Tools, Utilities, etc, in its Repository. To try them out - you can auto install - via secured link - 5-10-15+ at once, via the Synaptic installer. No reboots. Try them - and then uninstall the ones you don't want, the same way.

I do quite a lot of graphics, audio and video for friends and myself. For video - Avidemux for format conversion (to MPEG2, or MPEG4 / Xvid4 for the kids' hand-helds) and filters - Colour, Sharpen, De-noise, etc.

As Editor, Kdenlive - which is about the same functions level as friends' Sony Vegas Pro - but didn't cost the AUD$650.00 they paid for that. And gets updated a lot more often...

Or you can have Cinelerra - used by commercial studios. It has a pretty steep learning-curve, and is levels of overkill for home-user video, but it's also free.

There are a couple of hundred Audio apps and utilities in the Repository.... Of very many types and functions.

For graphics - Gimp is now very good - or you can also run Photoshop in Wine, which I do.

I'm not sure about the Windows port of OpenOffice - but the Linux one can open, run, save - and create - the current MS formats, including *.docx.

You say you want to do Internet, Email, YouTube, view Photos, and make digital albums.

Linux is fast and secure on the Internet - it was born there. There are no Viruses and Trojans - they don't run in the Linux/Unix systems (but if you aren't very careful, you can pass them on to Windows using friends...)

Linux can be vulnerable to (and highest risk for Linux home PCs) - hackers. There are also Worms and Rootkits - usually aimed at Linux Servers - but "could" get into Workstations or PCs.

I've had not one "intrusion or related" incident in 9 years. This box runs 24/7, and is on Cable Internet for more than half that time. I run Shorewall software firewall - and it's behind an encrypted hardware firewall router.

Linux has plenty of Email applications. You can watch YouTube HD in Firefox or other browsers very well. Photo Viewers - how many would you like? Click in a dozen or so - try them, uninstall the ones you don't like. Same with digital-album apps and utilities.

And when you're doing several tasks at once - you can spread them across several Desktops. I only use 6, mostly - I leave Desky-1 clear for Internet or immediate jobs. But you can have up to 20 Desktops, if you need them.

Although I was a Windows tech (builds and repairs of PCs at suburban dealerships) - for 11 years, I've been 'spoiled' by Linux. I still help friends with PC builds and servicing/repairs - but I've sort-of forgotten how to "use" Windows... If you want to run 5-6 jobs at once - it gets a bit crowded without more Desktops to run them on...

But, my friends like and prefer what they're used to - and so long as that suits them - who can argue with that?

What I'd do is just ask your techie neighbour if he can build you a computer. Depending on how well you know him, offer him a small compensation, doesn't have to be much, just don't "make" him do it for free.

(Of course, you pay for the parts as well). Offering to help assemble everything gets you bonus points.

Also, read the Tweakers best buy guide for desktops (dutch site, shouldn't be an issue I guess), to get an indication of what's out there.

_________________I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

DD_nVidia - Wine doesn't have a "hit" on photo/video apps. It's an interface, not an emulator. You would use it only if one of thousands of Linux applications doesn't do a particular process a Windows app does. And these days, such instances are few and far between.

As for a Windows 7 PC being cheapest and fastest.... On what could you be basing that claim?

As for "fastest" - you've clearly never done the same tasks on identical hardware Windows and Linux PCs. Windows is an old-design "stack" system, in which every user input and command has to travel the 'height' of the stack, between kernel and the user-interface. Linux is a fully modular system, with very much faster input response and action.

With Linux, you can update System kernels with a few clicks of the Synaptic installer. You don't have to uninstall previous or alternative kernels. Or you can also install kernels with specific functions. You can still from the Desktop select and reboot between kernels. Don't try that with Windows...

Also - with Linux, up to the limit of assignable resources - you can run multiple tasks on different Desktops. That is significant, as applications on different Desktops connect independently to the System Call Layer.

That's the interface between the Users, and the System. This means that applications on different Desktops cannot conflict with or interfere with each other. In the rare event that an application freeezes or crashes on one Desktop - applications on other Desktops keep running normally, and you just deal with the problem application on its Desktop.

As Linux has very much lower overheads and is more efficient, the PC hardware doesn't have to be as expensive as a Windows build. I was a Windows tech (5 certificated plus updates to A+, etc) - for 11 years, designing and building PCs and Stations for different tasking and work purposes.

Using good industry standard components - a Linux PC with equal or better tasking performance to a Windows PC, will be 20-30% cheaper.

Over 11 years of Windows PC designing and building, now 9 years of so doing for Linux, I do know what performance for each costs.

And, "compatibilty" with what? When you have over 12,000 applications, tools, utilities, etc - all at no cost to the User - you'll find software to do anything - usually with several levels of ability / complexity - to suit User abilities and experience.

Linux is much faster and easier to install than any recent version of Windows, starts up faster, runs faster, and is easier to use.

Also - if you home-network - you can have User Logons on the Family or "main" PC - and Users on the other PCs can log on from their PC, and use apps, tools, utilities not on their PCs - or of course, log on and use, or transfer to their PCs, any data they have permissions to access - from information to music, graphics, videos, etc. (Linux User Logons are totally separated from each other.)

And - with Linux, you can do anything you need to, or want to - User1, with the root password, controls the System. The System does not control the User.

Incidentally - you might note that Linux had the new tools and applications to run Fuji's HS10 (and S200EXR, etc) RAF RAWs - over 2 months before the Adobe apps did. The Linux DNGconverter could convert RAFs to DNG nearly 3 months before Adobe's DNG Converter was updated - a couple of weeks back. Er - camera "compatibility"...?

Disclaimer: I am typing this from my ubuntu workstation at work. My laptop is Ubuntu, and my desktop at home would be if X didn't freeze on startup in 10.10.

Unfortunately, Wine does have a "hit" on some applications. Wine is still not a complete implementation of win32, and some functions may not be implemented in an optimal way. This is especially true for audio/video/image apps that use DirectX. Direct3D is supported in Wine as a layer on top of OpenGL. Every call needs to be converted into equivalent OpenGL calls. Take Half Life 2 for example - works, but a much slower framerate. Audio apps tend to rely on ASIO drivers for the audio interface, making them useless unless running on Windows proper. Being a photography forum, have a look at the AppDB entry for Lightroom:

MichaelM - Part of your problem might with the 'Bunties.... You might try a more conventional RPM-based Distro like PCLinuxOS - or Mandriva.

Wine is more designed to run applications, not the large high-end Windows games.

If you need to run those in Linux, you might try Crossover Linux Pro, or Crossover Linux Games.

If Ubuntu 10:10 is freezing on startup, you could have a filesystem or partition problem. Check that / has adequate space, that Swap is available and being read, and that /home isn't chock-full.

Check /tmp to see that it isn't full.

You might also look at PCLOS - PCLinuxOS. I moved to it from Suse, then Ubuntu, then PCLOS in 2006... No probs, so still with it.

There's a new LiveCD ISO due out within days - can notify if you like.

If you really need the large Windows Games - and don't want to pay out for Crossover - you could dual-boot whatever Windows you have with Linux. My spare PC is running XP-Pro SP3, and the previous version of PCLOS.

If I go with anything other than Ubuntu it will be back to Debian. Yum annoys me enough that I can't go back to RPM based distributions.

As for Wine being designed to run applications and not games, well it is more or less semantics. A game is nothing more than a standard win32 application that has certain performance characteristics that must be met. The point was simply to illustrate that Wine, although excellent, is not always as fast or compatible as people say it is. I could have just as easily used newer versions of MS Office, Adobe Creative Suite, 3D Studio Max, or many other applications as examples.

If you really want the specifics of my desktop situation, here goes. I have an Nvidia GTX260. There are problems with Plymouth loading its bootsplash stuff with nvidia cards. That was part of the issue. Next, I had the nvidia proprietary driver installed. This involves the nvidia dkms module. The nvidia kernel module is incompatible with the nouveau module (open source driver). The installer is supposed to blacklist nouveau, but for some reason it didn't. Therefore, the nouveau firmware was being loaded at boot, but X was starting and trying to use the nvidia proprietary driver. The end result was a black or purple screen when X should start, and a completely unresponsive system (you could not even ssh into it). Manually blacklisting nouveau and installing the nvidia beta driver seems to have fixed the error, at least until the next kernel update.

I run Ubuntu Lucid Lynx on my very old desktop with Darktable and Gimp as my image editing programs. I have a laptop with Windows Vista and Lightroom and the windows version of Gimp. (I do have trouble with Lightroom running in Wine, but on that machine, I had problems running it in XP anyway, so it's more to do with my RAM than anything else...)

In terms of the original poster, if you don't want to build from scratch, just get the pre-made Windows machine. You can always dual-boot with Linux if you want to. And like others have said, unless you have a very particular reason for wanting a Mac, they are just so expensive for comparable specs!

Especially with the cheaper Windows machines, it is cheaper to buy the pre-made bundle than to buy all the components individually. It is not until you are interested in a relatively high-end build that doing it by yourself is economical.

The Mac is designed for people who want to buy a machine, take it out of the box, plug it in and use it. The only thing missing out of the box is a suite of office software, as well as the Microsoft solution there is the free Open Office suite or Apple's own software. The other thing Mac's are limited by is the choice of applications (games and specialist CAD software).

Yes you can build your own PC, find your favourite free apps to install and it will be faster and cheaper but all the support will be down to you and your tech savvy friends.

You can build a kit car from any parts you want and it will probably be cheaper than going to a main car dealer but what happens when it goes wrong?

It really depends what you want from your machine and how much computer knowledge you have or want to learn.